


Together in This Winter

by JonsaInTheNorth



Series: As The Seasons Turn [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-24 04:55:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7494687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JonsaInTheNorth/pseuds/JonsaInTheNorth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The years bring them together again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Together in This Winter

 

 

**Six years after the death of his wife, Jon Targaryen abdicates in favor of his son.**

When all the pomp is done and the coronation over, he saddles his dark horse and straps a sword to his hip. His aged white wolf trots along besides him as he leaves through the Dragon Gate early in the morning as scant flecks of golden light pierce over the Blackwater.

King Eddard, first of his name, looked more comfortable upon the Iron Throne than Jon ever had. Young Ned knows nothing of fierce winter blizzards that blind a man’s vision three inches from his face; he knows nothing of the risen dead that his father and mother fought. But he was raised in the politics and drama of the Red Keep’s court and navigates it well. He was born to this throne in every way his bastard father wasn’t.

No one recognizes him on the King’s Road. Jon speaks to no one and keeps his hood drawn over his face at all times. He camps on the road, and Ghost stays in the woods when they pass others.

Jon is glad to be rid of King’s Landing. With each passing day, he sits a littler taller in the saddle. He loves Ned and his wife, Elinor Tyrell, but the life at court has aged him. His dark hair is streaked with grey, and his back hunches from the days spent sitting in the abominable chair. Ned has run the seven kingdoms in all but name since Daenerys passed on. 

He would finish on his own life in peace. Jon is going home.

 

* * *

**Sansa begins her watch five days after the raven comes.**

Jon would return to Winterfell. Rickon, her eldest son, was startled by her pained smiles when he told her the news.

“The King rides North, Mother.” He held out the wrapped parchment. “My cousin would have him join our household.”

“It will be good,” she said, fixing her features to a calmer mien, “to see him again.”

She told her children, Rickon and Brandon and Cat, little about their uncle, the king. They did not know his love for Winterfell or the way he fought to regain their home before leaving it forever. They are startled when she leaves the keep, so rare except for her visits to the godswood, to stand on the battlements.

Every day, Sansa walks them for hours and stares at the horizon. She is the first to spot visiting lords and traveling merchants as they come into winter town. Her eyesight has not strained with age in the way her face has wrinkled and her bones become more brittle. 

Sansa waits to see him, to discover him again, because even though she is surrounded by the love of her children, her heart still burns for him.

 

* * *

**It takes two months of wandering to reach Winterfell.**

It has been nearly twenty-five years since last Jon saw its walls. Winter town is thriving, and the banners that hang from the battlements suggest that there is a thriving court within the keep. A spot of red stands over the gate, but disappears the moment Jon sees it.

All the reports on Lord Rickon are good ones. He rules in his mother’s name, running the North and Winterfell both smoothly and effectively. He hears the man is nearly a duplicate of his Stark grandfather, except for his mother’s eyes. The youngest of the Stark children, Catelyn, is nearing twelve. 

Someone once said she looked like Jon’s mother, and they are right.

The Starks and most of the household are there to greet him when he trots through their gate. They are solemn in the wake of their father’s death, only a year prior.

There is one glaring absence. Apologies are mumbled for their mother, they say she is unwell and does not stir, but Jon still insists on seeing her.

 

* * *

**Minutes after he his brought before her, does she finally speak.**

“Jon.” His name is like acid on her tongue. Sansa’s heart beats faster than she ever thought it could. She sets a hand over her chest. “Why have you come?”

“I wanted to be home.” 

Silence. Nothing can bring her to speak, although she wants to shout:  _You gave up your home, when you left and never returned even though I needed you._ He stares at her, as if he is taking her in. She cannot bear to look at him, and studies Ghost instead.

 _“_ Lady Sansa, is my presence a trouble for you?”

That she can answer truthfully. “Yes.”

“Why did you lock me out, for all these years?” Jon asks, his brow curling in the way she loves so much. “We were family, once.”

“You chose the South over us. Over me.” Her last words are but a whisper, but realization dawns across his face. He steps forward before falling before her seat. 

“I thought- I did not know…” Jon sighs and reaches for her hand. His touch is cool and warm all at once, a true son of ice and fire. “I did not know.”

There is more silence and more questions, but slowly something begins to destroy the Wall risen between them.

 

* * *

**They marry quietly in the godswood half a year later.**

The first Winter snow since the Long Night falls around them, settling gently in her still-red hair. Her sons gives her away, and her daughter throws flowers. There are no others in attendance. 

Eddard wrote one letter, refusing his invitation. He feels Jon has betrayed his mother, who raised him in Fire and Blood more than to watch for the winds of winter.

The cold bites against her cheeks, turning them pink and red. As Jon touches his lips gently to hers, he is thankful that fate has brought him back to her even after all these years. This is the wedding he dreamed of, not the one held in a sept surrounded by strangers.

They grow old in Winterfell, and the years go by. A daughter of Fire comes north to marry Rickon’s eldest son, and they seem themselves reflected in the pair. The children will have the life they never knew, with children and summers together that Jon and Sansa never had.

Rickon breaks tradition when he buries them together in the crypts. Jon follows Sansa, within two weeks, both going quietly in their sleep. His stepchildren mourn him more than his own child, who seldom writes and comes North on a dragon for only three days.

 

* * *

**In the centuries that follow, the singers still write songs for their love.**

Two wolves, parted by war and politics, united in their final years. It is sad and bittersweet, but the smallfolk love it all the same.  _The Dragon’s Wolf_ ,  _A Time for Wolves, After the Years-_  all dedicated to the two united together.

But their great-granddaughter’s favorite song will always be  _These Seasons Changing_ , all forlorn sadnesses that crescendo into the happiness of a winter warm with love.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hang out and fangirl about Jonsa and other ASOIAF/GOT goodness with me on [tumblr](http://jonsa-in-the-north.tumblr.com).


End file.
